Girl Meets Music Business

Girl Meets Music Business A qualitative research of how it is to be female in the Pop Culture off the twenty-first century. ELEN KRISTINE LJOSLAND SUPERVISOR Daniel Nordgård University of Agder, 2017 Faculty of Fine Arts Department of Music Acknowledgements THANK YOU to Sofie, Ida, Ida Charlotte, Hanne, Andy and Razika for being so open and sharing with me in my research. THANK YOU to Daniel Nordgård, for guiding me and helping me with my master thesis THANK YOU to my family for always being supportive and Cheering me on THANK YOU to my two budgies, who always got me in a better mood by Chirping while I sat endless hour in front of the Computer. THANK YOU to the MusiC Department within Univeristy of Agder for 5 great years! Last but not least, THANK YOU musiC – for always being there for me and having suCh a big impaCt on life as we know it! Table of Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4 ExploitAtion And MArxist theory .................................................................................. 6 Exploitation in the Music Industry .................................................................................... 10 ContextuAlizing my work: ............................................................................................ 18 Girls And Music (from the 1960`s – 2016) .............................................................. 20 Method And MethodicAl choices: ................................................................................ 26 Presenting the reseArch-field: .................................................................................... 34 Presenting my informAnts .................................................................................................... 34 Girl Meets Music Business (in 2017) ........................................................................ 37 “Good for A girl” ........................................................................................................................ 37 AffirmAtive Action And working conditions? ................................................................. 43 Some debating……. ................................................................................................................... 46 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 51 References: ........................................................................................................................ 54 3 Introduction BAckground for choosing this Assignment: The distribution of power in the musiC business has been a hot topiC for several deCades. From the riots in the 80s to the ”girl power” slogan entering in the late 90s, the musiC business has been sort of a forefront for muCh of the gender battle. The examples that’s been stated by female musiCians has no doubt been of serious consequences for the next generation growing up with these idols. The year 2014 is often Categorized as the year the feminism Came baCk into the pop musiC. It was known by female artists dominating the hit lists and newsfeeds, but it was also the year where the girls in the musiC business did great things in the spirit of feminism. This was the first year where all top 5 songs on “Billboard 100s-list” where performed by female artists, and where the plaCement stood steady for six(!) weeks. In 1984 there were only 4 women on “Billboard 100” in a whole year, and that says quite a lot about the development over the past couple years. Maybe one would think now that the equality in the music business is set, but this Can be very muCh disCussed. While there are now plenty of female singers, who are fighting their way on to the hit lists, the majority of the people working behind the sCenes are still male (66%). Why is this? In the last months of 2014 there were also more hidden “viCtories” amongst female artists, for example Taylor Swift`s magazine Covers where she was portrayed without any kind of sexification but rather powerful and proud. The newspapers called this portraiture the portraiture often associated with men. Many people have argued and asked questions why the photos of female artists and the photos of male artists should be different. Aren`t they in the same profession, and to some extent sharing the same values? Gender balanCe Can only be aChieved by eduCation, and isn’t it true that muCh of our eduCation and knowledge, right or wrong, we perCeive from the pop Culture? 4 It is after all the things we perceive about our selves and others by looking on screens and miming texts on songs we love, and thereafter the standards for behavior we set based on these elements Combined, that shapes us. This paper enlighten the development of gender balanCe throughout the deCades, and based on in-depth interviews tries to get a hold on what the situation is like today and with that disCuss possible Changes that should be made. Even though there have been victories, one can clearly see that gender is still a hot topiC in the Cultural industries. When one read about it from media one can often get another impression, maybe even a “glossy” image of what the reality is. I therefore think it will be interesting to researCh on gender balanCe in the musiC industry, from the inside. In this Master assignment I want to take a look at the distribution power inside the musiC business, along a gender dimension. Questions I would like to researCh are amongst; How does the musiC industry really relate to gender differences? What importanCe does gender differenCes attribute in the music business, and what kind of consequences does it get? How is the pop musiC able to unite the female part of the soCiety, and strengthen their battle for gender equality? 5 Exploitation and Marxist theory There is no doubt that there is a tendency in society to neglect the exploitation that goes on in the cultural labor, as well as the other labors of work. Examples of these beliefs are portrayed in the two books: “The Politics of Cultural Work” (Banks, 2007) and “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (Ross, 2009), where the word “exploitation” is hardly mentioned. It is muCh due to Marxist theory that the word “exploitation” has been known. The classic Marxist view of exploitation is that it is a result of ownership by the capitalist Class of the means of production. They mean that the workers are Compelled to labor too be able to survive, beCause they laCk the means of produCtion, and Capitalists extraCt the leftover that they generate. Karl Marx was in his time setting prinCiples bound to govern the distribution of welfare under the soCialism and Communism, prinCiples that saw distribution to each person according to their work and needs. Exploitation was then occurring when these two faCtors weren`t meeting, when the reCeiver was not receiving according to their work or needs. An important issue when dealing with these issues is the question about how we can know capitalist exploitation when we see it? In other words, how do we differ exploitation from simple oppression? “Erik Olin Wright has argued that exploitation in its Marxian sense is based on three principles. First, exploitation in its Marxist sense occurs when the material welfare of one class is causally dependent upon the material deprivation of another. The capitalist class in modern societies could not exist without the deprivations of the working classes. Second, such casual dependence depends in turn on the exclusion of workers from key productive resources, especially property. Third, the mechanism through which both these features (causal dependence and 6 exclusion) operate is appropriation of the labour of the exploited. “ (Hesmondhalgh, 2015, p4) This means that if only the first two oCCurs it is simply oppression. For exploitation (according to Marxian theory) the third one also has to take place. This also works the other way around; if only the third occurs it is only oppression, beCause both Causal dependenCe and exClusion must be present, as well as the appropriation. A Common way of thinking about exploitation is thinking about threatening of people`s autonomy. This Can however be CritiCized. One of the reasons for this is that even the most soCialist world, if it ever would exist suCh a thing, would sometimes need its Citizens to do things they didn`t want to do, and to make sacrifices in the Cause of the Common good. This way the Case of autonomy provides a very unstable basis for the battle against exploitation. “Instead, Cohen argues, capitalist labour exploitation is unjust primarily because it involves essentially forced and unreciprocated flows of products from workers to capitalists, which derive from the primary cause of an unjustly unequal distribution of resources, where some people (capitalists) own the means of production and others (workers) don`t. “ (Hesmondhalgh, 2015, p5) Cohen is here of great help in speCifying Marxian exploitation, but he misses to differentiate the different degrees of exploitation that can exist. Rather he foCuses more on the abstraCt prinCiples. Hesmondhalgh thinks that a broader ConCeption, whiCh also brings in the more everyday sense of unjust advantages, might help us further down the road of battle against exploitation. He writes in his artiCle that exploitation is a word with great

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